Eduardo Masferrè

Half-Spanish and half-Filipino, he was born in the region of the Gran Cordillera Central of Luzon. His father, was a soldier who became a farmer, converted to the Episcopalian Church and became a missionary devoted to teaching and providing medical care. Between 1914 and 1921, Masferrè's family lived in Spain, where Eduardo began his education. After completing his schooling in the Philippines, Masferrè followed in his father's footsteps and became a missionary teacher and then a missionary administrator. After World War II, he opened a photographic studio in Bontok -- in addition, he eventually took up farming. Masferrè first learned to use a camera while he was a boy at the mission. Returning to photography in 1934, his artistic focus became the mountain people of Luzon with whom he shares part of his heritage. His concern has been to document the lives of those people before the onrush of the modern world changes them irrevocably. His photographic art was essentially self-taught.

Back to the Philippines